Views Of Police Research Articles

Towards a suicide-responsive police culture: police experiences of working with suicide

ABSTRACT Across the globe suicide rates are creating concern, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that suicide is the responsibility of everyone. The WHO recognises that police have an important role in suicide prevention and the management of mental health crises. We suggest that police officers and staff are inevitably impacted by the emotional labour of meeting the demands of this aspect of the role. We argue for more research attention on the experiences and views of police who work with suicide. This study comprised qualitative reflective interviews with police in the UK, Guyana and New Zealand, with the focus on identifying commonalities in experience across the three locations. Four themes were generated through reflective thematic analysis: (1) the context; (2) the traumatic impact; (3) the difficult aspects of this work and (4) organisational opportunities for supporting police officers and staff. Our data illustrated that suicide is qualitatively different from other forms of death, and the nature of the work did have considerable emotional and traumatic impact on police. We conclude our paper with several recommendations for police forces to build their welfare support for staff. These recommendations could help promote a healthier workforce and recognise the specific issues associated with this part of the role.

Political pressure and information bias in arrests hearings in Mexico city

The initial hearings of the criminal justice system are a space where, when deciding on the legality of detention, the police power to arrest people can be evaluated. This study analyses the control of detention in the criminal justice system of Mexico City based on two dimensions that have an impact on the better or worse protection of the rights of detainees by the police. The first, an informative dimension about the reconstruction of the “facts”, the second, a political-normative dimension derived from the punitive context in which the justice system is questioned for releasing “criminals”. Based on the observation of 776 initial hearings in criminal courts in Mexico City and interviews with judicial officials, we analyze 1. the balance of the information entered regarding detention; and 2. the difference in the result of detention control between priority crimes of public security policy versus other crimes. The results indicate that: a) the facts of a detention are reconstructed with a clear bias towards the views of police and prosecutors; and b) when dealing with crimes that are a priority for the city's crime policies, a detention is less likely to be declared illegality.

"It's like we are seen as animals": The relationship between Black people's encounters with the police, metadehumanization, and perceptions of police legitimacy.

Across two studies, we explored the relationship between Black civilians' encounters with the police, their attitudes toward the police, perceptions of police legitimacy, and metadehumanization perceptions. We predicted the more negative Black individuals' encounters with the police, the more unfavorable their views of police would be (attitudes and perceived legitimacy) and the more likely they would believe police believe Black people are less than human. We further hypothesized that the relationships between Black Americans negative counters with the police and their views of the police would be mediated by metadehumanization. Black Americans (N = 522, Mage = 35.85) were either asked about the quality of their interactions with police (Study 1) or randomly assigned to write about a positive, negative, or neutral encounter with police (Study 2). They completed attitudes toward the police and police legitimacy and metadehumanization measures. Study 1 found the more negative Black individuals' encounters with the police were, the more negative their views were toward police and the more they believed police saw them as less than human. This relationship was partially mediated by metadehumanization. Study 2 demonstrated a causal relationship between negative police encounters and negative perceptions of the police; however, metadehumanization only partially mediated this relationship. Negative encounters with the police may have lasting negative implications on Black citizens' perceptions of legitimacy but more research is necessary regarding the role of metadehumanization perceptions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Active shooter incidents: training, safety, culture and officers’ support for prioritizing victims’ lives above their own

PurposeActive shooter incidents have risen considerably in recent years, elevating public and law enforcement focus on improving response to these incidents. The contemporary policy for reacting to an active shooter event is for the officers who first arrive on the scene to move quickly to engage and neutralize a shooter, prioritizing victim safety and minimizing loss of life. This study provides a preliminary understanding of the police view regarding their role in active shooter events and their experiences with active shooter training.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a survey of 413 sworn personnel across three US cities. Analyses examine differences in officers’ training experiences across the agencies and predictors of a sense of duty to prioritize victims’ lives over that of officers.FindingsOfficers’ training experiences differed by agency, yet most officers supported a duty to sacrifice their lives to prioritize victims’ safety during active shooter incidents. Officers with more years of experience have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice their lives to save victims during an active shooter situation relative to less experienced officers. Respondents who recall officer safety among the top three most memorable topics from their recent active shooter training also have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice.Originality/valueThe authors add knowledge about police officers’ experiences with active shooter training and officers’ opinions about their role in responding to active shooter incidents. We discuss implications of the findings relative to police culture and training and suggest directions for future research.

Contact with and Perceptions of Campus Police Among College Students at a Small-Town University

Although research has documented an association between sociodemographic and behavioral factors and contact with local police, it remains unclear whether such relationships exist among college students who experience contact with university police. It is also unknown how such factors relate to students’ perceptions of campus police. Given the contentious nature of law enforcement in the U.S. and the racialized climate in higher education, it is imperative to understand how college students’ interactions with and perceptions of campus police fall in relation to the broader narrative of policing. Analyzing data from a current sample of approximately 400 undergraduate students enrolled at a small, public university in the Northeast United States, this study examines the sociodemographic and behavioral correlates of students’ contact with and perceptions of university police. Results suggest there are minimal differences between students with and without a history of police-initiated contact in terms of sociodemographic background. Nevertheless, despite this distribution of contact with campus police, self-identified sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities, as well as politically liberal students were among those to possess more negative views of campus police. We discuss these findings as a potential by-product of the broader rhetoric surrounding police-community relationships and racism in higher education.

The Spatial Dimension of Police Legitimacy: An Exploration of Two Pacific Island States

The police legitimacy literature is grounded predominantly in studies from the Global North. In these contexts, technology and economic resources allow policing institutions to exercise significant reach in ways that mitigate the challenges to service delivery posed by distance and geography while the bureaucratic state relationally distances these same institutions from the public. This scholarship tends to take these governmental ‘fixes’ as given. In Global South contexts, these fixes are less reliable. The complexities of policing in dispersed states—rural, remote, and island—are frequently mentioned within scholarship. However, the question of how spatial relations impact police legitimacy and services largely remains a passing concern. In this paper, we argue that in the Global South, spatial relations are important elements contributing to police legitimacy. This argument is made by reframing the rural and remote policing literature to explore how spatial archipelagic features influence how policing by the state occurs. This work is used as our analytical scaffold in two case studies of the Solomon Islands and Tonga that illustrate how space influences local views of police. We argue that space is a key contextual characteristic that needs to be considered within future police legitimacy research and theorisation.

Differing Perceptions of Criminal Justice and Views of Law Enforcement: A Cluster-Analytic Approach to Racial-Ethnic Identities.

Race and ethnicity within psycholegal research have often been treated as nominal variables which ignores their rich within-cultural diversity and can sometimes lead to sweeping pejorative conclusions (e.g., higher prevalence of arrests). The development of several salient measures of racial-ethnic attitudes-such as the CERIS-A and MEIM-has sparked a refocusing on dimensional perspectives of race and ethnicity. This refocus becomes especially important when examining views of law enforcement and criminal justice in light of unwarranted deaths of minoritized groups while in police custody. The current study recruited a juror-eligible, online community sample (i.e., MTurk) to study their views of justice and police. Using the seven subscales of the CERIS-A, four cluster groups were identified that spanned participants' race and ethnicity. Unique patterns emerged when comparing the four groups. For example, the cluster high on both multiculturalism and their own racial-ethnic identity had far more negative views of police conduct regarding its lawfulness and fairness. Further differences emerged for views of criminal justice including the death penalty. The research implications of these findings were discussed.

Does Black Lives Matter support moderate the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy? Testing the procedural justice invariance thesis

PurposeProcedurally just policing positively affects legitimacy regardless of differences in some demographic and neighborhood characteristics. Yet, less is known about how critical citizen views of police influence the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy. Citizen Black Lives Matter (BLM) support is an indicator of views toward police and provides a useful measure to test the procedural justice invariance thesis. The purpose of this study is to examine if BLM support moderates the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy.Design/methodology/approachData from a survey experiment of Americans (n = 363) are used to explore whether BLM support moderates the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy.FindingsResults suggest BLM support is negatively associated with encounter-specific perceptions of police legitimacy and provides tentative evidence suggesting BLM support moderates the effect of the decision-making element of procedural justice on legitimacy. Specifically, the interaction suggests that at higher levels of BLM support, procedurally unjust decision-making reduces legitimacy. However, there was little erosion of legitimacy among BLM supporters during procedurally just encounters.Originality/valueThis study tests the procedural justice invariance thesis in a BLM context. Results support an association between BLM support and encounter-specific perceptions of police legitimacy and provide preliminary evidence that the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy may vary by levels of BLM support.

Working to Improve Youth-Police Interactions: A Pilot Evaluation of a Program for Young People.

In addition to training law enforcement personnel in strategies to promote positive youth-police interactions, equipping youth with similar knowledge is critical in ensuring safe and effective youth-police encounters. The classroom-based Juvenile Justice Curriculum was designed to equip young people with knowledge about the law and their rights and to empower them to have safer interactions with police. In the current study, we conducted the first evaluation of Strategies for Youth's nationally recognized classroom-based intervention. Cross-sectional data were collected from 155 youth (M age = 15.3; 43% White, 23% Black; 61% boys) after they completed the Juvenile Justice Curriculum. Results from our study indicated young people learned new information regarding what leads to arrest and multiple ways they might consider changing their behaviors when interacting with police. Young people's negative experiences with police officers were significantly associated with reduced views that police respect them and reports that they respect police, and with increased views of police as ethnoracially biased after completing the program. Altogether, our pilot program evaluation of this program demonstrated increased awareness of what constitutes illegal behavior, program engagement, and learned strategies to improve future interactions with police. Findings highlight the importance of policy makers supporting programming like the Juvenile Justice Curriculum as one means of preventing juvenile legal system involvement. While the onus to ensure safe and effective interactions with police should not be on young people, empowering young people to understand the law and their rights may help improve the social climate surrounding community responses to police and police interactions.

Downstream Effects of Frayed Relations: Juror Race, Judgment, and Perceptions of Police

Building on research demonstrating significant differences in how Black and White Americans view law enforcement, this study assesses how those differential views shape potential jurors’ decision-making in the context of a federal drug conspiracy case in which the primary evidence against the defendant is provided by an FBI agent and an informant cooperating with the agent. A sample of 649 Black and White jury-eligible U.S. citizens were exposed to the case, in which a Black defendant is being tried, and where the informant-witness race (Black or White) was varied. Participants determined verdict, evaluated evidence, and completed additional measures. Results indicated that Black participants were significantly less likely to convict than White participants, especially in the White informant condition; rated the law enforcement witness as less credible, and viewed police more negatively across three composite measures. Exploratory analysis of how juror race and gender interacted indicates Black women largely drove racial differences in verdicts. Perceptions of police legitimacy mediated the relationship between juror race and verdict choice. We conclude that it is critical that citizens are not prevented from being seated on juries due to skepticism about police, given the risk of disproportionate exclusion of Black potential jurors. The legal processes relevant to juror excusals need to be reconsidered to ensure that views of police, rooted in actual experience or knowledge about the problems with fair and just policing, are not used to disproportionately exclude persons of color, or to seat juries overrepresented by people who blindly trust police.

Why do children cooperate with police? The nexus of the authority relations and cognitive developmental perspectives

Police must rely on the public’s cooperation; however, youths’ views of police are historically low. To understand the dynamics of these intergroup relations, this study integrates two theoretical perspectives: the cognitive developmental perspective, which posits that age-graded cognitive enhancements enable children to begin critically evaluating police; and the group engagement model, which suggests that views of police impact law-related behavior. Utilizing a sample of 424 community youth (37.97% Hispanic/Latinx, 19.81% Native American), this study tested four novel hypotheses: H1: Age is negatively associated with youths’ willingness to cooperate (WTC) with police; H2: Age is negatively associated with normative alignment with police; H3: Normative alignment is positively associated with WTC; and H4: Normative alignment is more strongly associated with older youths’ WTC. All four hypotheses were supported. The article discusses the implications of both the integration of these theoretical perspectives and the findings for understanding the effects of these intergroup dynamics.

Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

Doing the Job! Expectations of Police Recruits (Pre- and Post- Graduate Entry)

Abstract This research explores the views of police recruits from cohorts pre and post the introduction of the graduate entry scheme. Recruits at the end of their initial training period were asked about their role and their expectations of policing. The views of recruits from these different cohorts are compared to understand whether the new graduate programme inculcated different views than the previous training programme. This research suggests that there are few differences between student officers who have completed the graduate training programme and those that did not. The findings suggest that there are deeply entrenched barriers and resistance to the change process. If change is to be achieved, it will require that the commitment of several stakeholders including the graduate officers themselves.

A Cognitive View of Policing

A Cognitive View of Policing

“Giving the Highest Chance of a Good Outcome”: Exploring the Missing Persons Act in British Columbia and Ontario from the Policing Perspective

British Columbia and Ontario are two of the Canadian provinces and territories that have enacted a Missing Persons Act, legislation aimed at improving the police investigation of missing person cases. Understanding the Acts in these regions from the policing perspective presents an opportunity to assess their efficacy and utility. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to examine police perceptions of and experiences with the Missing Persons Act in each region. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with police officers from over 20 services across these regions, this article explores police insights into the impacts, challenges, and benefits of the Acts related to missing persons work. Additionally, police support for and perceptions of this legislation are uncovered. Results show that police view the Acts in these regions as enhancing missing persons work through standardization and strengthening abilities to obtain information and records, follow various leads, and use technologies that assist in successfully locating missing people. However, a paradox emerged: Police are reluctant to make use of this legislation. Explanations for this and the implications of these findings are discussed.

Police Activities and Community Views of Police in Crime Hot Spots  

Police Activities and Community Views of Police in Crime Hot Spots  

Police Activities and Community Views of Police in Crime Hot Spots

Police Activities and Community Views of Police in Crime Hot Spots

THE INJUSTICE OF UNDER-POLICING IN AMERICA

THE INJUSTICE OF UNDER-POLICING IN AMERICA

Police Activities and Community Views of Police in Crime Hot Spots

Evidence on how hot spot policing affects community members’ views of police is very limited and inconclusive. Scholars have thus called for further study of community attitudes in hot spots to guide police in the formulation of hot spot strategies—an issue that is especially salient given recent public controversy surrounding policing, particularly in the United States. Using survey responses collected in 2018 from more than 1,000 community members living or working in more than 100 hot spots across 2 mid-sized cities in the United States, this study examines how community members’ perceptions of police activities in hot spots relate to their wider attitudes about police. Bivariate and multivariate analyses indicate that community members in hot spots in both cities exhibit more positive attitudes towards police along several dimensions (e.g., trust and confidence in police, views of police legitimacy, and perceptions of police responsiveness and procedural justice) when they see more frequent patrol and when they see positive police-community interactions. They have more negative views of police when they witness higher levels of investigative and enforcement activity. The findings support hot spot policing strategies that emphasize regular, systematic patrol in hot spots, complemented by positive community engagement efforts and problem-solving work. In contrast, they imply that enhanced enforcement activity in hot spots should be used judiciously.

Racial/Ethnic Connection with Confidence in the Police: Equal Treatment Matters

Recent discussions on confidence in the police by race/ethnicity call for shifting the research focus from whether race/ethnicity matters to why and how it matters. The purpose of this article is to decipher the mediating role of the quality of police treatment in a nuanced study of racial impact on confidence in the police. Data were collected from a two-wave random-sample telephone survey of approximately 2400 residents in Houston, TX. The results confirm the expected effect of race/ethnicity on confidence in the police, net of neighborhood contexts and respondents’ demographics. More importantly, we found that the three measures tapping into the quality of police treatment during police–resident encounters partially mediate the race/ethnicity effect on views of police. Perceived equal treatment emerged as having the strongest effect. When the combined race/ethnicity sample was divided into three racial/ethnic subsamples, perceived equal treatment exerted the largest effects on confidence in the police both within and across the groups. Its effect is most pronounced for the Black subsample. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.